Bible Commentaries

This ^a month [shall be] unto you the beginning of months: it [shall be] the first ^b month of the year to you.

(a) Called Nisan, containing part of March and part of April.

(b) Concerning the observation of feasts: as for other policies, they reckoned from September.

Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth [day] of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of [their] ^c fathers, a lamb for an house:

(c) As the fathers of the household had great or small families.

And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take [it] according to the number of the souls; every man according to his ^d eating shall make your count for the lamb.

(d) He will take as many as are needed to eat the lamb.

And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the ^e whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

(e) Every one his house.

Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast [with] fire; his ^f head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.

(f) That is, all that may be eaten.

And thus shall ye eat it; [with] your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: ^g it [is] the LORD'S passover.

(g) The lamb was not the Passover, but signified it, as ordinances are not the thing itself which they represent, but rather they signify it.

And this day shall be unto you for a ^h memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance ⁱ for ever.

(h) Of the benefits received for your deliverance.

(i) That is, until Christ's coming: for then ceremonies will end.

In the first [month], on the fourteenth day of the month at ^k even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.

(k) For in ancient times they counted in this way, beginning the day at sunset till the next day at the same time.

For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the ^l destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite [you].

(l) The angel sent by God to kill the first born.

And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the ^m land which the LORD will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service.

(m) The land of Canaan.

That ye shall say, It [is] the sacrifice of the LORD'S passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people ⁿ bowed the head and worshipped.

(n) They gave God thanks for so great a benefit.

And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for [there was] ^o not a house where [there was] not one dead.

(o) Of these houses, in which any first born lived, either of men of beasts.

Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and ^p bless me also.

(p) Pray for me.

And the children of Israel journeyed from ^q Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot [that were] men, beside children.

(q) Which was a city in Goshen; (Genesis 47:11).

And ^r a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, [even] very much cattle.

(r) Which were strangers, and not born from the Israelites.

And it came to pass at the end of the ^s four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.

(s) From Abraham's departing from Ur in Chaldea to the departing of the children of Israel from Egypt are 430 years.

And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This [is] the ordinance of the passover: ^t There shall no stranger eat thereof:

(t) Unless he is circumcised, and professes your religion only.

One ^u law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.

(u) They that are of the household of God, must be all joined in one faith and religion.